Suunto 9 raise to wake feature

Tomas5

@bradleyd said in Suunto 9 raise to wake feature:

@theguyfromthesummit, @Tomas5 , @Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos, and others, is there any consensus on how to best use the combinations of Standby, Raise to Wake, DND, and Backlight?

On my S5, there are a weird combination of features and/or bugs and/or HW issues that lead to the following super-easy-to-reproduce observations in a newly factory reset and synced to android device:

Raise to Wake never works, even after a factory reset and no additional settings changes, with any wrist movement

Pressing any button will bring the backlight on at high brightness for 10 seconds

Long pressing the top left button, when the backlight is on, will temporarily turn the backlight off, then it turns back on again

DND has no effect on battery brightness, always very bright for 10 seconds

Switching to Battery Saver will cause the backlight to turn off, no button press will turn it back on

Turning on the Backlight from the middle right button long press will show the backlight for about 65-70 seconds, no button press after it it auto turns off ( 10 seconds after the screen goes to sleep from no movement )

So confusing, I want to like this feature, but I don’t understand how it works. Is the S9 and S9B behaving differently from the S5?

Brad

Try to use it in dark room. It worked for me but i didn’t notice since it is so low intensity. Only visible in dark room.
Unfortunatelly, after suunto removed toggle mode, it is like it is, i hate that every button, every notification etc enable backlight but sadly i can’t do anything about it.
Well, maybe some residue after removed toggle mode.
didn’t test
didn’t test
can’t reproduce

I still have hope that suunto will bring back toggle mode. It was feature documented in user manual, they took it away, thay removed it from user manual. I am very disapointed by this. It was my default mode in Ambit 2s, and It was my default mode in Suunto 5 until they removed it.

Bradleyd

Quick update, I spent a week with the feature fully enabled and discovered much of my observation list items are just how the feature works, including:

Raise to Wake will work eventually, but as @Tomas5 pointed out, you need to be in a dark room to see it. It also helps to follow @Brad_Olwin advice and give your wrist a little flick at the end of a purposeful wrist raise. It also helps to note that DND will disable raise to wake, so confirm your auto-DND setting before trying at night.
( Obviously ) By design to turn on backlight with any button press
By design, this can be done in 2.14.16 with backlight in Automatic mode.
This is a change in behavior, in 2.14.16, DND will set the backlight to a dimmer screen brightness
This is a change in behavior, in 2.14.16, Power Saver mode will not affect backlight in Automatic or toggle mode.
I think 2.16.28 is required for turning on a backlight from the long-press middle button menu. I could be wrong, here, so don’t flame this feedback if it is inaccurate.

I’ve reset the S5 to 2.14.16 and will spend the next week deciding if I absolutely require a manual toggle backlight. Trying not to be biased, but I think it’s a must have for my watch use and expected battery life.

rn966

Is this feature working for anybody of you while running?

For me it has a kind of anti-behavior.
I can see that the light goes on and off while running, slow blinking.
If I raise my hand to look at the watch, then it goes off and I only see a dark screen.
Some extra shaking of the arm sometimes start the light.

I don’t think I have any special arm movements while running, thumbs up and palm slightly opened.
S9B Titanium on left arm.

DMytro

@rn966 works similar for me. I think its mostly fine though, I prefer this over constant backlight or having to press a button.

isazi

I think it’s too sensitive, i.e. it turns on also when it shouldn’t, but it works for me when it has to. If during activity I raise my arm the screen lightens up.

JorgeFD

@rn966 Yes, I’m having the same behaviour and it is very is very frustrating

rn966

Nothing changed/fixed with version 2.18.18.
Still having the slow blinking while running.
Could clearly see the light go on and off all the time in a mirror while running on a treadmill at the gym today.

Storz

Fairly disappointed with how the raise to wake feature works, I wonder if it has to do with the fact that I wear the watch on my right wrist vs left? I know with Garmin, when you turn on the raise to wake feature it asks which wrist you wear the watch on, and I am pretty sure the S7 Wear OS watch you also have to specify.

zhang965

@storz said in Suunto 9 raise to wake feature:

Fairly disappointed with how the raise to wake feature works, I wonder if it has to do with the fact that I wear the watch on my right wrist vs left? I know with Garmin, when you turn on the raise to wake feature it asks which wrist you wear the watch on, and I am pretty sure the S7 Wear OS watch you also have to specify.

Lol, i give up on raise to wake, if I need backlight, i turn it on during the exercise

cs2nd

@zhang965 I thought long and hard about staying out of this discussion but yeah. I really believe the general consensus is that this function simply isn’t as intuitive as we’d like, for starters. And thus there is that published “matrix” that is meant to help users to set it up for the various situations such as watch mode, exercise mode, etc.

That plus the fact that there seems to be a technical issue (software and/or hardware) that isn’t consistent or reliable given a user’s situation, leads to added stress and frustration.

This leads to “workarounds”. Personally, for night activities I’ve trained myself to remember to turn on backlight before hitting start. I remember to do this maybe 80% of the time!

Literally, in this world today and as others have mentioned earlier, we’ve got to carry on, get out there and get the run/hike or whatever done regardless of expectations we put on our gadgets.

I work for a software development firm (Agile/DevOps, 2-week sprints). Development moves swiftly. Requirements and feature requests are in abundance. We’ve all become demanding consumers. Sci-fi movies fuel our expectations. Good things are in the works surely for Suunto and the fitness/wellness technology industry.

I’ll leave this here and exit the room - Years ago there was a slogan “People, powered by Technology”. I forget who or what organization came up with that.

While that is kind of cool, I remind myself to turn that around and see it like this - “Technology, powered by people”. It kind of puts you the user in control, at least in the mental space. In other words, let’s not let the good/bad aspects of technology get to us.

“Adventure starts with - you (here)”. The technology is along (with us) for the ride, not the other way around. Haha. I think this was more about me convincing myself.